Vintage Aurora Cessna L-19 Bird Dog US Army Plane & Tornado .049 Engine with Box

Description

Vintage Aurora Cessna L-19 Bird Dog US Army Plane & Tornado .049 Engine with Original Box & Papers. This is a genuine vintage original built model kit from 1950's - 1960's era. It has been in storage for decades and is being sold just as you see it, untested for flight. The airplane itself looks fine with no cracks, chips or missing parts. The instructions manual are present but are worn and have age toning. The box base is decent but the box top is in pieces but at least it seems to be all there and cane be taped back together. It also includes an old battery and empty tin fuel van. Please check my 12 detailed photos as they should give you an accurate appraisal.
The Cessna L-19/O-1 Bird Dog is a liaison and observation aircraft. It was the first all-metal fixed-wing aircraft ordered for and by the United States Army following the Army Air Forces' separation from it in 1947. The Bird Dog had a lengthy career in the U.S. military, as well as in other countries.
Aurora Plastics Corporation was founded in March 1950 by engineer Joseph E. Giammarino (1916–1992) and businessman Abe Shikes (1908–1986) in Brooklyn, New York (moving to West Hempstead, Long Island in 1954), as a contract manufacturer of injection molded plastics.
With the hiring in 1952 of salesman John Cuomo (1901–1971), the company began the manufacture of its own line of plastic model kits, efficiently marketed with a skeleton staff. The target market were young hobbyists, similar to the kits of the rival companies, Monogram and Revell. Aurora profitably targeted a younger demographic than their competitors, creating smaller-sized, less detailed models at a lower price.
The first kits came in late 1952 and were 1:48 scale aircraft models. One was a F9F Panther jet and the other an F90 Lockheed. The Aurora logo at this time appeared in narrow white letters and in a semi-circular form across the top of the script; the more recognized Aurora oval did not appear until 1957. Boxes were a simply illustrated orange color. The slogan under the Aurora logo was "U – Ma – Kit" (You Make It). Aurora's market approach was to make kits simple, thus undercutting the competition. Along these lines these first two kits appear to have been Hawk kits measured and copied to Aurora's own molds.
By 1953, six more dies had been made for new airplanes: the Curtiss P-40E Warhawk, Messerschmitt Me-109, North American F-86D, and the Lockheed P-38L Lightning, and a fictitious Russian "Yak-25" (later sold as "Mig-19"). Lastly was the Mitsubishi Zero, called the "Jap Zero" on the box flaps. With the first two Hawk copies, this collection was called the "Brooklyn Eight".
Aurora Plastic's first kits were aircraft and this was a backbone of sales through the 1950s and 1960s. From early on the company's Famous Fighters line was popular. Included were World War I, World War II, jet age aircraft and a variety of whirlybirds. A series of aircraft from the 1930s were also offered. Sailing ships, warships, tanks and other military vehicles were available as well (DeHavilland 1957). One World War I airplane was the DeHavilland Airco DH.4. Many planes, like the Blue Angel F-4J, McDonnell-Douglas Phantom II and the LTV A-7D Corsair II, were offered in a larger 1/48 scale. Others were smaller scale such as the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker in about 1:100, because it would have been over two feet long in 1/48; and even smaller, like the Convair B-58 Hustler bomber in a diminutive 1:200 scale, or about 6 inches long.